


Keep Talking

by CactusPot



Series: Scourtney College Shenanigans [3]
Category: Total Drama (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Compliant, College, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post-Canon, TDWriMo, i mean technnically college bc this is set over winter break, references to Duncan/Duncney
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28515858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CactusPot/pseuds/CactusPot
Summary: Voicemail. “Is this thing on? Oh. It is. Nice. Howdy, you’ve just called the Scottmeister. Leave a message, and I’ll decide if you’re worth my valuable time.”“Hey, Scott. It’s Courtney.” She paused and stared into the blackness of her bedroom. “Couldn’t sleep, I guess. Miss you.”
Relationships: Courtney/Scott (Total Drama)
Series: Scourtney College Shenanigans [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062965
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Keep Talking

Courtney jolted awake right as his fingers closed around her arm.

 _Just a dream. Just a sick, twisted nightmare_. One hand snaked across her heaving chest. Her gaze fell on the dimly lit screen of her alarm clock. 1:12.

Ah. It was going to be one of _those_ nights, wasn’t it?

 _At least_ , Courtney thought as she counted the rapid beats of her heart, _I don’t have classes in the morning_. If she didn’t fall back to sleep, her grades wouldn’t suffer. Her internship or peace of mind might, but not her education.

She hadn’t had a dream this intense in a while, probably since the summer. The receding nightmare clawed at her brain, begging for her to mourn every grisly detail. 

_Stop thinking about it. Come on, Courtney, it’s been a year_. Courtney shoved the thoughts away and reached for her phone instead. In the next moment, she’d dialed Scott’s number.

Voicemail. “Is this thing on? Oh. It is. _Nice_. Howdy, you’ve just called the Scottmeister. Leave a message, and I’ll decide if you’re worth my valuable time.”

The condescending snark tugged at the corner of Courtney’s lip; her shoulders untensed infinitesimally. Even on a pre-recorded message, Scott could lighten her mood.

“Hey, Scott. It’s Courtney.” She paused and stared into the blackness of her bedroom. “Couldn’t sleep, I guess. Miss you.”

After hanging up, Courtney resigned herself to scrolling through her contacts in search of another divertissement.

 _Go back to sleep_ , her ego chastised her.

 _Keep scrolling_ , her id insisted.

Fatigue gathered at the corners of her eyes, and Courtney scrolled. Of the self-destructive behaviors from which she could select, a midnight phone reprieve was the lesser of many, many evils.

 _Who can I text_? The clock, now reading 1:14, limited her options. Alessia was in Greece for winter break; by Courtney’s count, a seven-hour time difference lay between them. Noora always, always shut her phone off after midnight. And Jen was… definitely not Courtney’s first choice for this particular situation.

Her first four choices were unavailable, so Courtney had essentially exhausted her friends list. She stared at her contacts, at one particular name at the end of the B section, before deciding on some night reading.

Courtney shoved in some earbuds and opened an ebook. A half-finished reread of _Pride and Prejudice_ awaited her. It had once been one of her favorite books, but she’d only picked it up again out of habit. Though the novel was still a well-crafted classic, somewhere along the line the story had lost its hold on Courtney. Maybe because tall, dark, and brooding wasn’t her type anymore.

Maybe it never had been.

Paragraphs flew by, and Courtney finished two chapters. Before she could swipe to chapter twenty-six, Scott called back. She accepted the call and turned on her nightstand lamp to its dimmest setting so he could better see her.

“Court!” Scott’s freckled face filled the frame. His voice was loud in her ears; Courtney turned down the volume in her earbuds. 

“Sorry I missed your first call,” he said. “One of the goats got out, so my sister and I had to wrangle her back in the pen.”

“How’d she escape?”

“Pappy thinks I left the gate open, but I’m not an _idiot_. She probably just chewed through a rope or something.”

Courtney nodded thoughtfully. “It’s good that you got her back.”

“Yeah. Gotta get milk somehow.

“So you’re up late.” Scott changed the subject. “It’s two in the morning for you, right?”

“1:21,” Courtney corrected him. “There’s a two-hour difference, not three.”

“Still, lights out for you is usually way before then.” Scott’s eyebrows rose. “Nervous for your internship?”

“Yeah,” Courtney lied. “Mom expects a lot from me.”

“Pssh, big deal. You’re great at everything you do, Court,” Scott said. His face moved away from the camera and he rummaged around his room.

A timid smile on her face, Courtney brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Thanks, Scott.” The encouragement was much appreciated, though she’d been interning for her mother’s company every break since college started. The position ceased to intimidate her as it once had.

She watched Scott grab unseen items. “Are you looking for something?”

“Just gettin’ my laptop and stuff off the bed.” Scott showed her his headphones, which he then tossed to the side. “Was playin’ some video games before the goat incident.”

The juxtaposition between farm life and gaming piqued Courtney’s interest. “Which games?”

Scott listed off his games, and Courtney settled into her blankets, listening. She knew he was new to the world of video games, only having been introduced to it after buying his college laptop. Courtney herself had never been much of a gamer, so most of his monologue was new information.

Every so often, Courtney’s gaze flicked to the top of the screen. 1:26. 1:33. 1:38.

At 1:40, Scott also noticed the time. “Wait, Court, am I keeping you up?”

“No, no, you’re fine.” She shook her head. “Keep talking about Underwatch.”

“Sorry, but I ain’t gonna be responsible for you falling asleep at your desk tomorrow. Time for both of us to hit the hay, hehe.”

“So responsible,” Courtney quipped, glancing once more into the darkness. It seemed to close in on her, and she hastily added, “But I promise, Scott, you’re not gonna ruin my job performance. I’d rather talk with you than sleep.”

“I’d rather talk with me, too.” Scott’s brow furrowed. “Wait, that came out wrong. I’d rather talk with you.”

For a moment the darkness receded.

“I had a really crappy dream,” Courtney blurted out. “A _nightmare_ , more like.”

Scott clucked his tongue sympathetically. “Lost a chicken-fight to a ten-foot shark? Your favorite psych class got canceled?”

“I wish.” A wry smile came and went. “Just stuff from my past.” Even if she had wanted to elaborate, the name stuck in her throat every time. She trusted Scott to connect the dots on his own.

“Aw, dang. That sucks, Court.” Classic Scott, ever the empath. “What happened?”

The contents of the nightmare had been fluid, the plot inconsistent and murky, as most dreams were. High school hallways, college campus, office cubicles. The shifting settings were irrelevant to the most defining, horrific detail: his presence. The splash of lime green never failed to set her on edge whenever it sliced its way out of her subconscious and into her waking thoughts.

Because gosh, that boy had screwed up. And now he was as good as dead to her. But as the months passed and Courtney began unpacking it all, she’d realized all the ways she herself had screwed up. Her own mistakes had catalyzed the end of their relationship, and that knowledge twisted Courtney’s gut in a way that scared her. To be lulled to sleep by her own regrets was not something she enjoyed.

“Oh, I don’t remember everything,” Courtney told Scott. She rolled onto her side and propped her head up with one hand. “I can only recollect the general emotions, y’know?”

“Gotcha.” Scott nodded sagely.

“I feel better listening to your voice,” she assured him. “You can keep talking.”

“Anything to make you feel better, Court.”

Her stomach flip-flopped pleasantly. “Thanks, Scott.” A thought occurred to her. “Unless you have something in the morning?”

“Nothin’ other than the usual farm chores. But they won’t be a problem.” Scott winked at her. “Scotty can run on three hours of sleep if he needs to. It’s one of my many talents.”

“Perfect.” Courtney propped her phone on her auxiliary pillow and tucked one arm underneath her own pillow. “So what were you saying about achievements?”

Scott talked and Courtney listened, _mmm_ ing and _hmm_ ing every so often. Gradually her eyelids grew heavier, not with the weight of her past sins but the weight of the knowledge that someone cared about her.

**Author's Note:**

> Something in my life: *happens*  
> Me: oh boy this is great *projects onto Courtney*
> 
> Anyways, this was written for the end of Total Drama Writers' Month, so it's short and sweet and written in three days. Final week's theme was a free for all.
> 
> Finally, one reason I love writing Courtney is because I intentionally sprinkle in large, dramatic vocabulary words, so I learn something new every time I search ‘synonym for _’


End file.
